Orrville students do 'big chunk
of work' to obtain wetlands grant

Practical application of textbook-intense subjects like science and math is the goal of a grant recently received by Orrville High School teachers Jim Duxbury and Phil Young.

Whether you would consider it a practical application or not, much of the credit for the $15,000 grant from GTE goes to two students, the teachers say.

The WEFUN Project, for Wetlands Education Fostering Understanding of Nature, grant was written, in large measure, by students Andrea Galehouse and Steve Gill, under the direction of Duxbury.

"To say that we were surprised to get this grant is an understatement," said math teacher Young. "The kids did a big chunk of the work," he said. "In fact, after I filled out my portion, I put it away and thought 'that's the last I'll see of that.'"

Duxbury, high school earth science and geology teacher, said, "The project will include bettering a 1 3/4 mile trail at the Blackwell Williams property near the (Orrville Area) Boys and Girls Club and will include the creation of three bridges with information stations and two trailheads."

For students, Duxbury said, if there is no understanding of where something would be practical to life, it is not pertinent to a student. "There has to be a reason for learning something," he said. "It gives value ... The grant writing itself is a lesson. I hope to work more closely with the English department in the upcoming year in the grant-writing aspects."

The two teachers are planning a multitude of different activities that give practical applications to textbook exercises at the wetlands area.

"We will be doing soil tests, soil augerings, volumetric studies, the classification of trees, and historical studies of the area," said Duxbury.

"We will be taking data and making predictions," Young said. "It will be ongoing for the kids to see the predictions that were made in the previous years -- whether they were accurate or inaccurate, why data is changing or not changing.

"We will also investigate water level, the content of the water, its acidity, animal life in the water and so on."

Calling the wetlands nature's "natural kidneys," Duxbury said that other things like flood frequency, siltation and sedimentation of the water also will be examined by geology students.

Technology plays a huge role in the whole project, Young said, and the grant will allow the two teachers to purchase a computer-based laboratory to start the project. "It's like a hand-held calculator," Young said. "It can analyze the chemical composition of the soil, the temperature, the oxygen level, the speed and velocity of the water."

For a math class, Young said the project is a great way to bring classroom and textbook learning to life. "We will be using equations and algebra, using trigonometry for measuring ..."

New standards in teaching, he said, keep requiring applications to classroom learning. "It's hard to find good application processes and this an excellent example," he said.

GTE established the GIFT program in 1983 to recognize excellence in teaching of secondary-school mathematics and science. Begun as a pilot program in North Carolina, the program now includes 40 states and the District of Columbia. Since its inception, the program has awarded approximately $10 million to some 1,700 teachers.